First off, your site cracks me up. It's great fun, and a glowing example of freedom of the press. Good thing this isn't China. But let me play devil's advocate with regard to your Carly story.
Lie #1: If she calls herself Carly Smithson, for whatever reason, so be it. It doesn't matter if she changed her preference five minutes ago or last year. Her name, her decision. It's silly to say she does it to hide her past, since that's an opinion that seems based in anger. And even if that is the reason, who cares?
Lie #2: It seems like you got her on this one. MCA spent a lot of money on Carly. The music just didn't sell. Why she blamed it on a label implosion is unclear, but it could just be sour grapes. Seems like a little white lie to me.
Lie #3: She clearly has stage experience, so I'm not sure what she was thinking here. Still, I wouldn't count the "Les Miserables" gig. No need to compare apples and oranges for the purposes of this discussion, especially when there are plenty of apples in the basket already.
Lie #4: What she said about choosing whatever song they want is unclear and could very easily be misinterpreted, which is a more likely explanation than saying she lied, especially since she seemed to be in the middle of a group interview and nobody objected to what she said. She very easily could have meant they get to pick whatever they want from the list they're given.
Lie #5: Saying her label didn't feel like shopping a record is just her opinion, not a lie. It may seem to outside eyes like MCA was trying to shop the record, but Carly's still entitled to feel they weren't. After all, you could fill entire countries with the artists who've felt, whether correct or not, that their label abandoned them.
Lie #6: Saying this is her second chance is certainly not a lie. She obviously means the MCA deal was her first chance to become a popular recording artist, and "Idol" is her second. Yes, there have been other chances for her to do other things with her life, but it's quite clear what she means here.
Most people would probably agree Carly has serious pipes. Whether you like her or not is another story. You clearly don't like her, which is fine. But if I were you, I'd stick to the two points out of six that seem to have the most meat on their bones. Her label didn't implode, and she seems to have plenty of stage experience. Ditch your other arguments and hammer her on these two points.
Again, just playing devil's advocate. Keep up the highly entertaining site. And please...drop Amanda in favor of Kristy. For Zeus' sake, if I even think of what she did to that great Beatles song, I want to cry. Normally I would agree that one bad performance doesn't outweigh a body of work. Not this time. What she did was one of the five worst abominations in "Idol" history, though nothing will ever be more hideous than what Camile Velasco did to "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" in season 3.
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(Last Updated on 3/11/08)
LIE #1: "My name is Carly Smithson."
Carly was a colossal flop in 2001. Her record "Ultimate High" tanked miserably. Even in 2002, when anyone with common sense knew that no one wanted to buy Carly's failed album, MCA Records still tried to promote Carly in Europe unsuccessfully. MCA merged with Geffen Records in 2003. Successful and talented artists like Mary J. Blige, Common, Blink-182, and the Roots made an easy transition over to the new label. So where did Carly go? She was dumped long before the merger in 2002. So her record company never imploded, and even if id had, the company merged and dissolved a full year after Carly was given the old heave-ho. Artists on Geffen still recorded successful albums. Carly even claims on the official Idol site that her friends would be shocked to learn she owns a Blink-182 album. So Carly even knows some bands survived the so-called implosion that never existed.
LIE #3: "I made a record, but I never did stage performances at all."
LIE #4: "We can pick any song we want on American Idol."
In the semifinals, this year the contestants were limited to choosing from a list of about 50 songs each week, which is why they all chose such idiotic songs. And Garrett Haley mentioned that the contestants are asked to pick 3 songs from the list and then are at the mercy of the producers deciding which they can sing. So to counteract this, Carly says in an Entertainment Weekly interview: “They're all saying online that we have a list to pick from. I believe we had a list in Hollywood week, and it was a big list; we had a lot of songs to choose from. But since the live shows have started, we get to choose whatever we like, which is great.” Why are we saying this online? Because Garett acknowledged it, and Nigel Lythgoe, the executive producer of Idol, even acknowledged it here. Silly Carly can’t even keep up the lie, completely contradicting the other contestants in the interview who say they have to pick from a list. It doesn’t even benefit her to make this up, as she looks foolish contradicting the producer.
LIE #5: "My record failed because of 9/11."
LIE #6: "This is my second chance."
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